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It happens all the time. A child comes running up to an on-leash dog, shrieking at the top of his lungs and waving his arms in the air.

"Don't EVER do that to a dog," the owner cautions."That's how little kids get bitten in the face."

The child will draw back, awe and fear on his face. "Does your dog BITE?" he will ask, curious and afraid.

It's common to see kids run up and shriek and throw their arms around tied-up dogs in front of stores, dogs on tethers in front of strange people's houses, and dogs in the back of pickup trucks. Worse, children run up to strange dogs and bark in their faces, or poke at their eyes.

Once, at an off-leash dog area in San Francisco, a little boy with two of his friends ran away from a group in front of a school bus and raced up to a dog and jabbed her in the face. The owner pulled her dog away, grabbed the boy's arm, and dragged him over to his oblivious teacher. She said that if her dog had bitten him she would have been justified, and it was sheer luck and nothing else that the little boy still had a face.

The teacher looked at her, bemused, and said, "Does your dog bite?"

When poked in the face, shrieked at, and pummeled, many good, well-behaved dogs will at least snap at a child. Dogs who are not used to children will snap more readily than a dog who is accustomed to the higher voices, jerkier movements, and smaller size of a child. Do not underestimate the perceived threat a child can be to a dog. Do not waste your time telling your child that good dogs don't bite, nor asking someone if their dog bites.

Parents need to understand a few simple facts. According to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, most dog bites happen to boys under ten, and most dog bites are administered by small dogs. How big is the problem? The CDC estimates the number of bites at 4.5 million a year. Of those, 800,000 required medical treatment in 1994, and fifteen were fatal.

Clearly, the growl and snap with which a well-behaved dog will try to warn off a child who is frightening or hurting it are SERIOUS WARNINGS, not behavior to be mimicked or imitated.

No one wants to make children afraid of dogs, and it can be a hard balancing act to instill respect and caution without invoking "the big bad wolf." Many of the children who put themselves at the worst risk, though, are the ones who have a big, loving, tolerant dog at home, some tail-wagging Labrador or Newfie who lets the kids pull his tail and ride him like a horse.

Parents need to educate their children in how to behave around dogs. Here are some dos and don'ts for the parent: